For advocates, anti-soda failures still have pop

Rep. Rosa DeLauro is about to introduce the first-ever federal bill to tax sugar-sweetened beverages and, by all accounts, the legislation doesn’t have a chance.

But that’s not really the point.

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As health advocates and local political activists made clear at the National Soda Summit, in Washington, D.C., recently, the push to drastically reduce soda consumption in the United States isn’t really about winning sweeping tax or labeling policies, which the beverage industry has by and large defeated.

It’s about pushing out the anti-soda message to a broader and broader audience.

“I am working on legislation right now to tax sugar-sweetened drinks like sodas,” said DeLauro, in a recorded video message played at the summit. As POLITICO Pro previously reported, the Connecticut Democrat first announced the legislation when she spoke at a screening of the film “Fed Up” on Capitol Hill in early May.

“I hope to introduce legislation in a matter of weeks and I look forward to working with all of you to make this a reality,” DeLauro said.

Even the most ardent supporters of such a move know full well that it’s not likely to gain traction.

“No, it probably won’t pass, but I think it’ll get some press coverage and it’ll also set a good example for people outside of California that this is a reasonable measure,” said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which organized the summit. “It’s not totally outlandish.”

Jacobson estimates that a soda tax of a penny per ounce could bring in $100 billion over 10 years. He said CSPI would talk to lawmakers about the bill, but said he didn’t have a sense of which Democrats might be willing to join DeLauro on the legislation.

It’s not unusual for lawmakers to introduce legislation that has little chance of passage to generate lots of buzz and further the cause.

During the soda summit, held at the National Press Club this week, advocates detailed efforts from Seattle to New York, aimed at reducing the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, commonly referred to as SSBs, but so far none of the high-profile attempts to get taxes or warning labels have worked. Regardless, several of the event’s speakers suggested those efforts are making a difference as soda sales are on the decline and the beverage giants are on the defensive.

The volume of soda sales fell by 3 percent in 2013, which is more than twice the 1.2 percent decline than in 2012, according to Beverage Digest. And no-calorie sodas haven’t been immune to the trend either. Last year, Diet Coke sales dropped 6.8 percent.

Carter Headrick, the director of state and local obesity policy for the American Heart Association’s Voices for Healthy Kids Project, told summit attendees that he believes the anti-soda movement will eventually win some key battles, but in the meantime, he thinks groups are scoring simply by driving the debate.

Headrick pointed to legislation in California that would mandate a warning label on sugar-sweetened beverages, which recently cleared the state senate, as one of his favorite policies.

“I think it’s the ideal bill to frame the debate around health,” he said at the event. “Part of me hopes it doesn’t pass — and I shouldn’t say this — because I’d love to have the debate over and over again.

“It’s a huge fight to win, but we will win these fights,” he said “We just need to get to a tipping point,” he said. “We just need to get a few wins in this country.”

The warning label in California is more about building momentum than it is about what impact the policy would have on consumers’ beverage choices, said Harold Goldstein, executive director of the California Center for Public Health Advocacy.

“The reason for doing the warning label has little to do with whether it will actually work,” Goldstein said.

“Mostly … it’s about building a movement.”

The American Beverage Association isn’t buying it.

“It sounds to me like more spin than substance,” said Chris Gindlesperger, a spokesman for ABA, when asked about the notion that unsuccessful bills and ballot initiatives are impacting soda consumption. “If you look over the last couple years, there’s been roughly 30 states and cities that have proposed taxes and none of them have gained traction or passed.

“In terms of regular soda sales being down, this is a trend that’s been going on for longer than the past couple of years,” he said, adding that regular soda sales have been dropping as Americans become more calorie-conscious.

“Our companies are innovating every day, we’re bringing no, low- and zero-calorie beverage options to the marketplace,” Gindlesperger said. “We’re a consumer-driven industry. That innovation is driven by consumer demand.”

While advocates at the soda summit expressed a strong commitment to continue the push for punitive policies, especially for warning labels, there were questions raised about whether highlighting the soda-diabetes link might resonate more than the soda-obesity link. Goldstein argued that advocates are going to lose if they continue to talk about obesity instead of focusing on metabolic diseases like diabetes.

“When I say diabetes, the industry has no idea what to say,” he said. “This isn’t about calories anymore.”

That narrative fits right into the controversial new film “Fed Up,” which blames the bulk of the nation’s weight and health problems on excessive sugar consumption. Laurie David, who produced the film with Katie Couric, also appeared at the summit via video message and shared a clip of the film with attendees.

DeLauro praised “Fed Up” in her remarks. “Added sugar is pervasive and almost inescapable at the supermarket,” she said.

“When a 2-liter of cola is 99 cents and blueberries are more than $3, something has gone wrong.”

DeLauro’s office said the legislation is still in the works and declined to provide further details, but an aide said to expect a bold proposal.